Majority of New York Voters Say They Would Re-elect Cuomo, Poll Finds

With his re-election campaign looming, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo has enviable approval ratings from New York voters and general support for many of his newest proposals, including legalizing medical marijuana, according to a new poll released on Monday. But his specific plan for the drug — to use an obscure law, and not new action by the State Legislature, to provide it to patients — is much less popular.

The poll, conducted last week by Siena College, was full of good news for Mr. Cuomo, who has yet to campaign in earnest but has over $33 million in his campaign coffers. The poll asked the opinions of some 800 registered voters in the state, and a solid two-thirds said they viewed the governor favorably; 54 percent gave him a positive assessment of his job performance, and a solid majority — 57 percent — said they were ready to re-elect him.

Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat, also had a much better reputation among voters than two of his possible Republican opponents. The poll found that Rob Astorino, the Westchester County executive, was largely unknown by state voters and would be handily defeated in a head-to-head matchup with Mr. Cuomo. And Donald J. Trump, the real estate developer and reality television star, was very well known, but largely disliked; the poll found 57 percent had an unfavorable impression of him. Mr. Cuomo would defeat Mr. Trump with 70 percent of the vote, the poll said.

The governor seemed to have wide support for a number of initiatives he proposed this month in his annual State of the State address to the Legislature, including a $2 billion bond act for schools, universal prekindergarten for the state, increased penalties for texting while driving and a variety of tax cuts.

However, the rosy outlook for Mr. Cuomo did not necessarily carry over to specific issues that were addressed by the poll. Asked whether the governor’s policies had made for a better business climate, more voters said he had had only a little effect. Less than 30 percent of voters said the state’s economy was “excellent” or “good,” with 69 percent describing its fiscal condition as “poor” or “fair.”

And when it comes to the governor’s recent embrace of marijuana as medicine, voters strongly support the general idea but are not happy with Mr. Cuomo’s methods of making it happen. He wants to use a little-known 1980 law to provide marijuana through 20 hospitals across the state; some advocates for medical marijuana fear the law is too cumbersome to be an efficient basis for a statewide program, but the governor disagrees. Fifty-five percent of those polled, though, said New York lawmakers should instead pass a law allowing medical marijuana, as other states have done.

But legalizing recreational use of marijuana was another story. Fifty-four percent of voters said they opposed that idea, the poll found.

New York voters were also not particularly fond of the recent activities of New Jersey’s governor, Chris Christie, a Republican, who has been embroiled in a controversy involving a traffic jam in Fort Lee, N.J., that has been linked to his top aides. The poll found Governor Christie’s favorability rating among New York voters had fallen to 49 percent, from 63 percent, since November, when voters in New Jersey overwhelmingly elected him to a second term.

The poll, which was released on Martin Luther King’s Birthday, showed a pessimistic attitude about race relations in the state, with more than half of voters describing them as “fair” or “poor.”

The poll of 808 New York voters had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A16 of the New York edition with the headline: Voters Back Another Term for Cuomo, a Poll Finds. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe